PM Modi to visit China April 27- 28

Will chart a new course for India- China ties

Beijing: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit China for summit talks with President Xi Jinping from April 27 to 28 in Wuhan city, said Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi.

Beijing, April 22: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold an informal summit in China’s Wuhan city from April 27 to 28 to exchange views on bilateral and international matters and to enhance mutual communication between the two leaders, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi announced on Sunday.

Prime Minister Modi will be visiting the central Chinese city at the invitation of President Xi, Mr Wang said at a joint media event with visiting external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj after their talks. “The two leaders will have communications of a strategic nature concerning the once in a century shifts going on in the world. They will also exchange views on overarching long- term and strategic matters concerning the future of ChinaIndia relations,” Mr Wang said.

“The informal summit will be an important occasion for them to exchange views on bilateral and international matters from an over- arching and long- term perspective with the objective of enhancing mutual communication at the level of leaders,” Ms Swaraj said.

Ms Swaraj is in China for talks with Wang and to take part in the two- day meeting of Foreign Ministers of the eightnation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation ( SCO) from Monday. Informed sources told PTI

that it will be an informal summit meeting between Xi and Modi during which both leaders will try to work out a new paradigm for the bilateral ties bogged down with a host of disputes and differences.

This will be fourth visit of Mr Modi to China after he came to power in 2014. He is again due to visit China to take part in the SCO summit to be held at Qingdao city on June 9- 10.

The Modi- Xi summit meeting is taking place in the backdrop of series of high level interactions between both the two countries starting with Chinese foreign minister Wang’s visit to India in December, the first after Dokalam standoff.

It was followed by two meetings between national security advisor Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi and the visit early this year by foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale to Beijing.

The two countries also held 11th Joint Economic Group meeting and the fifth Strategic Economic Dialogue ( SED) recently.